Three sentenced in mob bookmaking case

Michael P. Mayko

Updated 9:09 pm, Saturday, May 4, 2013

One is a longtime mob associate, another is a custodian for the Stamford school system -- the third is a Stamford restaurateur.

All three men were recently sentenced for their bookmaking roles in a multi-million dollar gambling operation run by members of the Gambino Crime Family in Fairfield County.

U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant sentenced Anthony "Skinny" Santoro, 49, of Staten Island, N.Y., who federal authorities say is a longtime associate of the Bonnano Crime Family to eight months in prison and ordered him to forfeit $25,000 to the government.

She sent Michael "Peewee" Vitti, 33, of Stamford, a custodial engineer for the Stamford Board of Education, to prison for 10 months and ordered him to forfeit $100,000.

Finally, Bryant sentenced Daniel "Dannyboy" DeGruttola, 33, also of Stamford, who owns the Brickhouse Bar & Grill, Bedford Street, to three months of home confinement and forfeiture of $100,000. All three previously pleaded guilty to operating an illegal gambling business which carries a maximum five-year federal prison term.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Chen charged that the trio worked for a gambling operation that took in $1.69 million from October 2010 to June 2011. The prosecutor said the operation is headed by Dean DePreta, 45, of Stamford, a reputed Gambino associate and his longtime friend, Richard Uva, 44, of Trumbull.

Their operation included street bookies, an internet gambling website in Costa Rica, and three gambling houses in Stamford and Hamden, according to court documents. Both DePreta and Uva have pleaded innocent to charges and are awaiting trial.

Chen said Santoro is a longtime associate of Vito Badamo, a made member of the Bonnano Crime Family. The two were arrested, convicted and incarcerated following a 1995 attempted New York warehouse break-in with the intention of stealing several pounds of cocaine. The break-in was interrupted by police and a shoot out occurred in which one of the pair's accomplices was killed, court documents show.

In this case, Chen charged that DePreta and Uva refused to pay off $28,000 in winnings to Santoro's gamblers because they believed he was manipulating wagers. Chen said they turned over money only after Santoro "enlisted the assistance of his superiors in the Bonnano Family."

The prosecutor said Vitti's gamblers lost about $310,000, and DeGruttola's lost $220,000 to DePreta's operation from the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2011.

In a Jan. 29, 2011, telephone call recorded by the FBI, DeGruttola complained to Uva of some gamblers who couldn't pay.

Uva told him to get their names "because they might be guys you can control...You know what I'm saying?"